The WritersNet Anthology of Prose reverses the trend of the publishing industry expanding onto the Internet. What began as an on-line evaluation and editing workshop on the WritersNet website turned this trend on its head when the best of the material submitted by writers across four continents, both published and unpublished, both previous best-sellers and those seeking their first appearance in print, was published in this two-volume anthology. This project not only showcases the widely diverse talent of new and established writers and has established a new common-purpose dimension of community among the writers participating in WritersNet, but it also serves the community at large, as all profits above production costs are being donated to the Salvation Army in remembrance of the events of 9/11. The resulting collection of thirty-one essays and three children’s short stories by twenty-eight separate authors provided in this volume two of the anthology, WritersNet Anthology of Prose: Nonfiction and Children’s Literature, is much more eclectic than is normal with such works. These works defy the normal “common thread in content” rule. You can find something here to entertain you—and to make you ponder—no matter what your reading pleasure. Explore and enjoy.

Most human beings have their own private places, places to hide, places to conceal their most tender feelings, places to dream, cry, nurse wounds and heal, undisturbed by casual public scrutiny, uncaring passersby. I visualize my private place as a big, leafy-green bramble bush, full of protective thorns. These thorns are long and sharp, to be sure, but they are not poisonous. They are there to protect my private place and keep intruders away - - unless I decide to invite them in - - and they do provide safe, secure perches for visitors . . . like you. "I think of my life as a book. It has a beginning and an end, with a finite number of pages in between. Across the years, there have been certain moments, certain feelings and moods, certain experiences and observations, certain days - - good and bad - - that linger in memory, bookmarks in a commonplace life. I am not an artist but I try to paint my sketches and pictures with words, brush stroke word by brush stroke word."

A girl-child grows up and out of The Great Depression. Where to begin this story? Almost any place would do, but people like real beginnings and endings, so the year 1929 is as good a place as any. That was the year that a little girl's love affair with animals began. The child, almost by osmosis, soaked up values, ideals, concepts, and a philosophy of life, along with an ability to observe, understand, respect, and sometimes love every living thing. And, just as her father showed her that each duck had a distinct, individual personality, reasoning power, and the ability to communicate with anyone who understands 'duckese', he also taught her about death and its necessity if life is to continue. This is a difficult lesson for anyone, but a lesson everyone must eventually learn and come to terms with, no matter how hard and hurting they find it. Life is not only full of beginnings; it is also full of endings.

Adelle Bradford was a child of the dustbowl. âI have seen, heard, and fully experienced so very many things that are now but yesterday's dreams, dry and musty historical facts lost in the pages of dusty old books, or slowly fading away in musty old photo albums full of yesterday's forgotten people. âAlthough my first few years of life didnât start out that way, I became a Great Depression child in the early thirties. I lived in tent cities and shanty towns erected by men too proud to 'go on the dole'. I was taught that even though your floor was dirt, you carefully brushed it clean each day, and even though you had no shoes, you washed your feet every night."Stories of dispair and triumph, poetry and a lifetime of writing because Adelle Bradford could not help it . . "as I attempt to paint my 'mind pictures' in words for others to see.â

The Secret of the Mothers: When a child is discovered living with Bonobo Apes in the jungles of the Congo, no one knows her secrets. Delilah's mother escapes from a German compound in Africa by killing the scientist responsible for her state of pregnancy. Ten years later, Delilah becomes a ward of the Brighton Foundation where she is first introduced to human behavior by a religious fanatic; later she is transferred from that facility and learns and confronts the evils of the foundation's head and her secrets of human experimentation and genetic manipulation emerge. The question remains: Who is Delilah Cross?

Six young people came to the conclusion that the whole world was heading for disaster. The government was no longer anything vaguely resembling the picture most people had of it. The bureaucratic empire-¬builders, the special interest groups, the politicians themselves, for the most part, cared little about those people they supposedly represented and this was slowly becoming something entirely different, a kind of government of itself, by itself, for itself, self-protecting and self-perpetuating, but huge cracks were forming in its foundations. Overpopulation was rapidly proving old man Malthus to be correct in his doctrine that a finite object like the earth could not feed an infinite population. Instead of living, breeding, and dying in their mud huts and tin shacks without once ever questioning the way things were, they were shown all the marvels and wonders of flush toilets, the pleasure of a full belly, the power of a dollar, and, quite reasonably, they wanted it for themselves and their children.

This book is written for small business owners, not-so-small business owners, and all levels of management and supervisory personnel. It is not intended to be an expert's "how to fix it" manual, or a detail-oriented, technically-learned textbook. Rather, it is presented as a series of short, down-to-earth articles discussing various sometimes-overlooked aspects of management problems faced in day-to-day business operations out there in the real world where every unsolved problem, no matter how small, has a negative effect on bottom line figures. Unfortunately, playing ostrich and hoping some of these small "business bugs" will simply wander away without biting you in the nether portions of your anatomy simply doesn't work. They don't go away, they just hang around and grow until they're big enough to forcibly yank your head out of the sand and demand attention.